


Here We Go (Again)

by quartetship



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: First Kiss, M/M, Soulmates, Time Loop, With A Twist, commission
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-22
Updated: 2017-05-22
Packaged: 2018-11-03 18:33:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10972992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quartetship/pseuds/quartetship
Summary: Sometimes your first kiss isn't your first at all...





	Here We Go (Again)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Zennhearts](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zennhearts/gifts).



> Commissioned by the lovely Lex, she asked for a first kiss, and I just kind of ran with the prompt. Hope you guys enjoy!
> 
> \--

“Keith, buddy - you gotta move, now!” 

Lance's voice rang in Keith's ears, louder than it should have been through the speakers of his comm link. In the middle of a peaceful mission, they'd been ambushed by Galra forces, and Keith was trapped outside of the red lion, alone on a slow-moving asteroid with nothing for protection but his armor. Over the speaker, Lance was hysterical. 

“Keith, seriously, I can't get to you before they do. You've gotta get out of there, please!” 

Shaking from his head the strange and sudden cloudiness that threatened to blur his vision, Keith nodded despite the fact that no one could see him. Red was out of sight, but he called to her, willing her closer, trusting her to save him. By the time he could see the details of the approaching Galra ship, he could hear the thunder of the red lion’s engines as she barreled toward him. 

In the blink of an eye she swallowed him into her cockpit, and they dodged the tractor beam shot their way. On the endless horizon, Keith could make out the faintest blue spot, growing larger by the second. He headed toward it, calling out to Lance. 

“I see you. Heading your way.” 

There was no reply, only the sight of the blue lion flying at top speed, mindless of the small rocks bouncing from her metal surface, scratching deeply as they did. Her pilot was undoubtedly ignoring them, too focused on getting to Keith. Despite the gravity of the moment, something about that fact made Keith's chest burn in a pleasant and distantly familiar way. 

He swallowed the feeling and all but crashed headfirst into Lance before the two of them could get turned around. 

“Castle. That way. Go.” 

It was all Lance could manage in the middle of trying to redirect. Keith and the red lion dragged Blue along after them, until they were all headed to safety. The Galra ship simply wasn't fast enough to keep pace, and they were soon out of its line of sight. They did not slow their engines until the Castle was in theirs. 

That evening, Keith thanked Lance at least half a dozen times. Despite Lance's assurance that it was no big deal - all in the job, he said - his face gave away the fact that he was as thrilled with Keith's safety as anyone could have been. The fear in his voice from earlier that day echoed in Keith's mind as he showered and slept that night, only stoking the smoldering heat in his chest. 

He remembered this feeling. Somehow. 

Waking the next morning, he could only wish he knew how. 

\--

Training was a way for Keith to find his center. He always found himself more at ease after a few rounds of whatever the training bots had to offer, and being in the gym alone gave him the peace that saving the universe typically lacked. 

That day, though, all he could think about was the one before. 

Why couldn't he let go of the panicked sound of Lance's voice, meant only for his ears? Why was his mind so tightly wound that his chest threatened to cave in, melting from the heat inside that refused to abate? He couldn't understand it, and it wasn't made any simpler when the door to the training room slid open, and Lance himself walked inside. 

“Figured I'd find you here,” he smirked, but his teasing was devoid of its typical venom. His face was without its usual glow as well, and Keith was caught between the desperate desire to bring it back, and the shocking realization that he had memorized it in the first place. 

Before he could stop himself, he blurted out the question he needed answered. 

“What's wrong? Why do you look… You look upset.”

Lance blinked back at him, startled, then let his smile fade completely. 

“I. Well, yeah. I am, I guess. Not like… I'm not  _ upset _ with you. I'm just really not over yesterday, I guess.” He scratched at the back of his neck, looked up at the ceiling and then down at his shoes, anything to keep his hands and eyes busy, it seemed. “I guess I just wanted to like… check on you? Make sure you're really okay, you know? You, uh. You really scared me, yesterday.”

“I could tell,” Keith said, and Lance narrowed his eyes on reflex, watching Keith's face for any sign of malice. There was none. They drew a deep, shaking voice at nearly the same moment, laughing when they realized they'd begun to mirror each other. 

“It was weird,” Lance began, after a long moment of more pleasant silence. “I just. I was so scared. All of a sudden, I realized you might actually die. And like… what would Voltron do without you?” He returned his eyes to the floor, but Keith could see him worrying at his lip before finishing his thought aloud. “What would  _ I _ do without you?” 

The small, smoking heat that had been burning in Keith's chest all night suddenly caught fire, bursting into a raging, open flame. He could feel the searing redness crawling up his chest, his neck, over his ears and cheeks, and all at once it was as if Lance was the only source of relief in sight. Overcome with fondness and feeling, with a need he couldn't put a name to, he reached out and took Lance's hand, raising the other to his face only to feel that same heat in Lance's skin, too. It was a sensation akin to winning, to finding what he had been searching for, for far too long. 

They exchanged a brief, breathless smile, like permission granted, and then Keith brought their lips together, kissing him like he had waited his entire lifetime to do so. 

Only when his lips brushed Lance's - warm, soft, and honey sweet - did he realize that in fact, he had. 

Memories, faint whispers of feelings he'd ignored for the whole of the time he had known Lance suddenly flooded his mind, and the slide of Lance's mouth against his was like a cooling rain for the fire in his blood. Keith  _ remembered, _ all at once, moments he knew he could not have lived, and yet the images in his mind were so clear and vivid they might as well have been tangible. He reached for Lance like he might manage to take hold of some of them, hands aching to hold onto the feeling forever. 

When they parted at last, Keith lingered just in front of Lance's face, all thoughts of training and Voltron and indeed the entire universe around them, abandoned. There was only Lance's soft expression, his lips still so close to Keith's as he stammered, breathless. 

“Did… Did you just like… Was there a  _ movie _ in your head just now? Because there was in mine.” 

Keith couldn't stop himself smiling, grinning too widely at Lance's choice of words. He nodded, one hand still cupping Lance's face. He thumbed over soft, dark skin, bumping his nose against Lance's own. 

“I think we've been here before,” Keith said, and putting words to the thought felt like relief, like something clicking into place. “I think we're supposed to be here. To be like this, with each other.” 

His face burned as hot as it ever had, letting the words leave him, but Lance nodded before Keith had time to feel foolish. 

“I think you might be right.” He glanced down, perhaps a little flustered, laughing. When his eyes returned to Keith's they held the same mischief they usually did, but the fondness that accompanied it was undeniable, unmistakable. “I can't believe -  _ you, _ of all people.” 

“Yeah, well, likewise,” Keith grinned, and when Lance closed the gap between them to capture his lips again, he hummed his satisfaction into the kiss. 

Perhaps that was it, though. Maybe the reason that they'd always butted heads so fiercely was a friction building between them that they didn't understand. Keith imagined two gears, trying to work in tandem without fitting together properly, and the sparks it might create. Those sparks were gone between he and Lance as they kissed, replaced by the hunger and need of two people trying to make up for far too many missed chances in a single moment. 

When he could breathe again for long enough to form a sentence, Lance looped arms around Keith's waist, pulling their bodies closer together. It might have felt strange, even minutes before, but in that moment it was the most natural place for either of them to be. The change was palpable in Keith's chest, visible in his face; he knew as much from the way Lance looked back at him, totally at ease. 

“So you think we were like… Boyfriends in another life or something?” 

Keith let his eyes close at the sound of the word and nodded, containing his bliss with a noncommittal shrug. 

“Probably. Think there's probably a better word for it, though.” 

“Oh yeah?” Lance huffed, cocking his head to one side. Keith nodded, more obvious about his happiness this time. It was hard not to be, looking at Lance up close, seeing the joyful sparkle in his lovely, blue eyes, details Keith would have never thought to look for even days before. Now they were beautifully familiar, something he knew he would look for every day. 

He smiled. “Think that's called being soulmates,” he said, and no sooner had the words left his lips than Lance was chasing the sound of them with his own, sighing as his body all but melted into Keith's. Leaning back just long enough to speak, Lance laughed, voice thick and slow from so much kissing.

“That's the cheesiest thing I've ever heard you say,” he snorted. He punctuated that sentence with another kiss, and then two more before whispering against Keith's lips, “Say it again.” 

“Soulmate,” Keith complied, his own voice barely more than a whisper in the heated air between them. He didn't think about where they were, how strange everything happening to them was, or the fact that they would definitely have a lot of explaining to do to everyone else on the team. All he wanted to think about was Lance, his reluctant rival turned friend, his lover from another lifetime. 

His  _ soulmate.  _

They lingered in the lonely training room, hands roaming and bodies pressed hard together as they kissed until they could hardly breathe, each other's names heady whispers and love-drunk giggles on their tongues. When they finally left, Keith didn't bother asking what Lance's plans were for the rest of the day; it was as if he already knew what the other was thinking, what the plan was for them both, without speaking a single word. 

By dinner, they'd moved into a single sleeping room, hands clasped beneath the table as they waited for the others and considered how to tell them. 

It was hard to think about putting into words something that had taken so few for them, yet had built up in both of their hearts over lifetimes before. There was no precedent in either of their minds; how do you tell those that you care about that your heart has apparently always been spoken for, by the person who had been at your side all this time? In the end, there was little to say. One glimpse of threaded fingers and reddened lips was all the others needed to burst into satisfied smiles, knowing exactly what needed to be said without hearing a word of it. 

Apparently, the only people in the universe who couldn't see the two of them trapped in one another's gravitational pull was they, themselves. 

Keith found that particularly amusing, if not irritating, as well. 

When they found their way into each other's arms that evening, there was a comfortable normalcy to it, a feeling of relaxing routine that lulled them both into a sleep that came far too quickly. Every so often throughout the night, though, Keith would awaken out of habit, only to hear and feel and see Lance beside him, as though he had always belonged there. Knowing that he had sent Keith right back to sleep, content in knowing Lance would be there to greet him when he awoke as well, just as he had on so many mornings, in so many lifetimes before. 

The fire in Keith's veins had cooled to a perpetual smolder, a fond warmth that radiated to every inch of him. He had found what he hadn't known he was searching for. He was at last at peace, with the missing piece of himself in place. 

With little more than a kiss, he had found his soulmate. 

He drifted off to sleep that night, wondering if their first kiss in every timeline had been just as magical. 


End file.
